3. The Committee adopted the Provisional Agenda (CX/FH 98/1) as the Agenda for the session, and agreed to discuss the Supplementary Agenda Item, “Consideration of Discussion Paper on Broader issues on the Application of Microbiological Risk Evaluation in International Food and Feed Trade” (CX/FH 98/1-Add 1) and the relevant working paper “The Implications of the Regional Differences in the Prevalence of Foodborne Pathogens in the Management of Microbiological Hazards for Foods in International Trade”, under Agenda Item 10. It was agreed to rearrange the order of some Agenda Items and discuss Agenda Item 10 and the Supplementary Agenda Item in conjunction with Agenda Item 3.
4. The Committee agreed to discuss the documents on Control of Listeria monocytogenes in Foods (CRD 3) and Antibiotic Resistance of Bacteria in Food (CRD 4) under Agenda Item 13 - Other Business.
5. The delegation of Spain and several other delegations expressed their concern that the working documents in Spanish were not received in time and the quality of the translation was totally inadequate. This created serious problems for Spanish speaking countries. In the course of the deliberations, certain delegations expressed their support for the concerns expressed. The Delegation of India expressed its concern about the late receipt of papers, especially some of the documents for Agenda Item 13. The Observer from the European Community expressed concern that the EC position paper on several agenda items had not been made available as a conference room document.
6. In order to facilitate the work of the Committee, the Chairperson proposed to apply the following working procedures: a full debate would take place on Agenda Items at Step 7 while, for the other items, the discussion would be generally limited to one intervention of 5 minutes for each delegation on each specific topic or section, unless it was necessary to extend the debate further, and editorial comments should be provided in writing.
